Zoysia and bermudagrass green speed
When zoysia and bermudagrass greens get the same maintenance, the ball rolls 10 to 20% farther on the bermudagrass.
Korai (Zoysia) putting greens have a distinctive roll because of the stiff leaf blades. One consequence of this is a slower green speed than bermudagrass when given the same maintenance.
In Thomas Walton’s thesis from the University of Arkansas, data are presented for ‘Lazer’ zoysiagrass and ‘Tifeagle’ bermudagrass stimpmeter measurements.
Walton wrote,
In 2020, ‘TifEagle’ bermudagrass had greater ball roll distance than ‘Lazer’ zoysiagrass on three of five rating dates (Fig. 18). In 2021, ‘TifEagle’ bermudagrass had greater ball roll distance than ‘Lazer’ zoysiagrass on six of seven rating dates.
Those are the statistically significant differences. I looked at Figure 18 and summarized the overall average.
 is a useful tool for extracting data from charts.](/post/zoysia-and-bermudagrass-green-speed-with-identical-maintenance/web_plot_digitizer_huda1c6b1522a6f53f8bdaadf460f5137c_432419_aa13a56168e51b0cad7172b0bc3d5d32.webp)
Averaged across all the measurements, the ball rolled about 10% farther on Tifeagle.1
This is similar to the differences between bermudagrass and zoysiagrass in an NTEP putting green trial, and is also similar to the differences I’ve measured on golf course putting greens.
Zoysia greens can have a really good roll. When the grass is dormant, there are no worries about speed. And when one does extra work, more work than is needed to achieve the same speed on bermudagrass, zoysia greens can have a perfect roll.
For more about that, see this short video about the distinctive roll on korai greens.
The log percentage change is 0.098, to be exact. ↩︎